Take a Moment
by moonlighten
Summary: 2000: Following devolution, France visits Scotland's new home in Edinburgh for the first time. (Scotland/France.) One-shot, complete. Part of the Feel the Fear series.


**22nd September, 2000; Edinburgh, Scotland**

-  
A fortnight ago, Scotland received an email informing him that France has business in Edinburgh on the evening of the 22nd and needed a bed for the night.

And that was it. There weren't any opening or closing pleasantries or even so much as a question, and the _presumption_ of it rankled Scotland so badly that he typed out, '_Until you can ask me properly, you can piss off'_, and was on the verge on pressing send before he came to his senses.

Contrite, he deleted the message and instead sent: _What time will you be arriving_?

_Around five_, France replied._ My meeting starts at seven_.

Scotland hadn't expected him to be on time – he never is – but it's almost quarter past six when he finally hears the rumbling swoosh of a car pulling up outside his house. He springs up from the sofa and glances out of the living room window to see France stepping out of a taxi. He glides around to the front of the car and pokes his head through the open passenger-side window to talk to the driver.

A moment later, France throws his head back and laughs. It's not his real laughter – which is scratchy and gasping and frequently nasal – but the high, tinkling sort he affects when he's trying to sweet-talk someone. Jealousy burns in Scotland's chest, rising like acid at the back of his throat, even though he already knows it doesn't really mean anything, because France flirts just like he breathes: autonomic and thoughtless.

He leans a little further in through the window, passing the driver some money or perhaps even pressing a fucking kiss to his cheek, Scotland wouldn't put it past him, and then steps back as the car peels away from the kerb. His shoulders rise and fall sharply, and he turns, very slowly, to face the house.

The furrows puckering his brow are pronounced enough that they're obvious even with the length of Scotland's small front garden and the pavement beyond still separating them, and his expression is one of weary resignation. And it could be that he's just tired after his long journey, but Scotland doubts it, given the way his feet drag as he starts towards the front door, heavy and halting, as though he's trying to draw out the short walk down the path that bisects Scotland's tiny scrap of a lawn for as long as possible.

Head bowed and back slumped, he looks like a penitent come to pay his dues, and if Scotland were a better man, he'd have told him he needn't bother. That whatever debt France thought he owed him after the Great War or even the Second had been repaid long since, and he doesn't have to hold himself now to what he promised then. '_Two friends enjoying each other's company when the fancy took them, and their circumstances aligned_'. They're certainly not that anymore, if they ever were.

But Scotland _isn't_ a better man, so he doesn't and he won't tell him anything of the sort. He'll take what he's given and be glad of it until such time as France grows tired of offering it.

He straightens out the creases in his shirt and trousers, runs a hand back through his hair in a futile attempt to bring it into some sort of order, and then opens the front door, catching France on the doorstep fist clenched and arm raised, poised ready to knock at it.

"My flight was delayed," he says, his eyes meeting Scotland's for only a fraction of an instant before his gaze skitters away again. "I need to get ready for my meeting. Where's your bathroom?"

"Upstairs; second door on your left," Scotland says, and mostly to the back of France's head after he's squeezed past him and set off down the hallway beyond. "If you need anything—"

"I won't," France calls back from halfway up the stairs, and then he's gone. The bathroom door slams shut, and Scotland knows he won't see hide nor hair of him for at least half an hour, when he'll be out the door again on the way to his meeting.

"Well," he says to the empty air, "I guess the grand tour's going to have to wait, then."

He'd been looking forward to showing France around, because he's unreasonably proud of his shabby little house. The windows all need replacing, there's a worrying, persistent smell of gas in the kitchen, and the whole thing looks like it hasn't been redecorated since Harold Wilson was PM, but it's _his_, in a way nothing really has been since the eighteenth fucking century.

France will hate it, of course he will, and curl his top lip at the hideous floral wallpaper in the living room, throw his hands up in despair over the Pepto Bismol-coloured tiles in the bathroom, but he can be acidly inventive in his insults about such things, and Scotland has always found his scorn quite amusing when it's directed at inanimate objects and not Scotland himself.

As it is, he says not one word about the tiles, Scotland's mismatched towels, or anything else when he emerges from the bathroom at five-to, and he looks set and determined to march off into town without even saying goodbye, either.

Scotland stops him at the front door and presses a spare key into his hand. "You know me, I'll probably be in bed by nine," he says, in answer to France's quizzical – and somewhat irritated – look. "If I'm not up when you get back, you can just let yourself in."

France nods once, and then he's off. Scotland stands on the front step and watches over him until a taxi appears to pick him up, and then retreats to the kitchen and the bottle of wine he'd bought with the intention of sharing it with France as they took that tour of the house he'd optimistically planned for.

It seems a shame to let it go to waste, so he uncorks it and pours himself a small glass. It's bitter, teetering on the border of acrid. France wouldn't have liked it, anyway, so it's probably for the best that he didn't have time to drink any. Scotland drains the rest of the glass in a single swallow and takes the bottle with him as he trundles upstairs to find out what damage Hurricane France has wrought to his bathroom.

It looks, just as Scotland had suspected it would, as though some sort of high-end cosmetics boutique has exploded inside it, scattering bottles, tubes, and boxes far and wide. He wonders if it's a form of silent protest against the décor, as France is neat and precise in his own space, and gets sniffy and prissily offended if anything's ever left even an inch out place from where it should be.

Scotland swigs the remainder of the wine whilst he puts the room back to rights again, and then settles down in front of the telly with a measure of whisky and spends the next three hours keeping a closer watch on the clock than the screen.

By ten, though, his eyelids are sagging, and try as he might, he can't keep his eyes open for more than a handful of seconds at a time. Much as he'd like to stay up to greet France's return, there seems little chance of him managing to do so. He gives in and calls it a night.

France has deposited his overnight and suit bags in Scotland's bedroom instead of the spare, which is a strangely heartening sight. The clothes he's strewn across the bed are decidedly less so, because Scotland can't just sweep them all off onto the floor – he'd never hear the end of it – and carefully folding and tidying them away in the fastidiously exact way France prefers drains what little remains of his energy.

He quickly strips off his own clothes, crawls into bed, and falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

When he rouses again, it's to the dazzlingly bright light of his bedside lamp, which feels to hit the back of his skull with all the force and power of a piledriver.

"Fuck." He hurriedly screws his eyes closed and rubs at them with his knuckles until the pain subsides. "Jesus Christ."

"I woke you," France says from the bedside, and it isn't a question, just an observation, and there isn't a hint of concern or apology concealed in the words.

Not that Scotland would have expected there to be; if France had given a single, solitary shit about waking him, he wouldn't have turned the light on in the first place, after all.

"What time is it?" he asks, because it seems pointless to remonstrate or complain. France likely wouldn't give a shit about that, either.

"Late," France says. "Nearly two o'clock."

Scotland almost asks what the hell sort of meeting doesn't finish until two in the morning but decides that he probably won't like the answer to that question and is better off not knowing. Instead, he attempts to open his eyes again, more cautiously this time, allowing himself time to adjust to the light, and France gradually swims into focus out of the glare.

He's still fully dressed but looks uncharacteristically unkempt: shirt crumpled, hair tousled, and tie hanging lopsided and seriously askew.

"Just give me a minute," he says, "and I'll…"

His words trail away into nothing, and his mouth hangs agape, as though he's forgotten what he was about to say.

At Scotland's soft, prompting call of his name, he blinks rapidly and shrugs off his jacket, letting it just fall to the floor by his feet. His trousers soon follow suit, and then he turns off the lamp and finishes undressing in darkness.

Scotland expects him to settle himself at the opposite side of the bed as he usually does, but he crawls across the mattress to slump against Scotland's side, his head landing heavy on Scotland's shoulder. After a moment's pause, his hand glides, flat and warm and achingly slowly, across Scotland's stomach to settle on his hip.

This close, he stinks of stale wine, staler sweat, and something musky and unpleasantly familiar. Scotland recognises the scent instantly, realises what it must mean, but he doesn't care. He really doesn't, because France hasn't wanted to hold him, or be held by him, for an age otherwise. Since VE day, if he recalls correctly, or shortly thereafter; more than fifty fucking years, and Scotland isn't going to give it up for anything, the resurgent, instinctive flushing heat of his own jealousy included.

He rests his own hand against France's back, tentatively at first but with growing confidence when his touch isn't rebuffed, trailing his fingers up and down the one small patch of clear, unscarred skin just below the swooping curve of France's shoulder blades. He buries his nose in France's hair. It smells of cigarette smoke and something bright and artificial, likely the last, lingering traces of France's expensive shampoo.

France sighs deeply.

"Are you all right?" Scotland asks, pulling him a little closer.

"Scotland," France says, and his lips brush Scotland's skin when he says the name. Scotland could almost pretend it was a kiss. "I don't want to talk."

Of course he doesn't. They don't talk here, in bed; haven't done for centuries. Scotland doesn't know why he even asked the question.

They only share a bed for one reason, nowadays, and it sure as hell isn't cuddling. He slides his hand across France's back, skims it along his flank and then lower.

France flinches hard. "I don't want _that_, either."

"Okay," Scotland says, stilling instantly. "What _do_ you want, then?"

They're off-script now, and he's all out of ideas as a consequence. As ever, he waits for his cue on how to proceed from France.

And waits, and waits, until France sighs again, and says, "I want…"

Maybe he's out of ideas too, because he stays silent for a long while afterwards. So long, in fact, that Scotland begins to think he's fallen asleep, but eventually France makes a low, frustrated noise at the back of his throat.

"Just go to sleep," he says, his voice little more than a rough growl. "We'll talk about it in the morning."

In the morning, he has decamped to the spare room, but that's nothing out of the ordinary and Scotland had learnt to stop worrying about waking alone decades ago. He showers and then breakfasts alone, too, and by the time he returns from his morning constitutional, France is up, about, and practically one step out of the door already.

When Scotland lets himself back into the house, he's standing in the hallway, bags packed and waiting at his feet.

"Here," he says, passing the spare key to Scotland. "Before I forget."

"Right," Scotland says, tightening his hand around the key until the cool metal of the pin bites into his palm. He wants to give it back to France, tell him to keep it; for his own future convenience, if nothing else. It's the sort of gesture that could easily be misconstrued, though, so he doesn't dare. "You all set to head off?"

France nods vaguely, and then peers over Scotland's shoulder towards the still open door at his back, presumably on the lookout for his taxi. "I'm meeting someone for breakfast," he says.

"No time for that talk you wanted us to have then, then?" Scotland says, and he forces himself to smile, to sound nonchalant, as though he couldn't give much a toss either way himself whether they do or not. As though he hadn't stayed awake for hours after France nodded off, his arm locked tight around shoulders, and agonising over what the hell such a talk might involve.

"I wanted to talk to you about something?" France says. His blank look is quite convincing.

"Aye, so you said."

"I had a little too much to drink last night; I'm afraid I can't remember." France's lips curl into something that bears superficial resemblance to a smile, but it doesn't reach his eyes, which are hard, almost spiteful in their intensity. "It can't have been very important."

It probably wasn't. Scotland had probably read far too much into the way France had clung close to him until he fell asleep – and perhaps beyond – in a way he hasn't done since they were practically weans, and consequently ascribed far too much significance to what was likely intended as nothing more than an off-hand, placatory comment meant to shut him up so France could sleep.

"Guess not," he says, through his own feigned smile. "Well, if you do happen to remember later, you can always give me a call and let me know."

"Of course," France says, even though they both know that's a lie. It'll doubtless be six months before they speak again, a year until France's next visit, by which time Scotland's house will be even more worn-down and lived-in than it is now, and far too late for any sort of housewarming celebrations.

Outside, a car horn honks – France's taxi, announcing its driver's impatient presence – and France takes hold of Scotland's hand and shakes it as though they're nothing but fucking work colleagues parting ways after a successful meeting or something like.

Scotland doesn't watch him leave this time, but trudges upstairs to the bathroom to splash some water on his face and his tired eyes.

France had obviously cleaned it whilst Scotland was out walking, washing the soap scum off the bath and wiping up the dribs and drabs of his split lotions and potions that he'd left smeared around the sink that Scotland hadn't had the fortitude to tackle last night.

Scrubbing away every last trace of his presence and leaving it looking as though he'd never actually been there at all.


End file.
